Did you know that May 1-7, 2016 is National Small Business Week? The Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development (CNHED) is organizing and promoting events and activities in celebration of the District’s small business community for DC’s own DC Small Biz TakeOver 2016!

There are a host of events and activities designed specifically for start-up and existing businesses throughout the entire week. We’re kicking off the week’s events by commemorating the one-year anniversary of CNHED’s Small Business Policy Project (SBPP) launch of DCSmallBizLoans.com, an online lending platform. We’re also sharing information about our second website, DCSmallBizHelp.com which is an online community where small businesses can find the help they need.

Whether you’re a small business, a supporter, or an organization providing assistance to small business, you can join in the week’s coordinated activities! Check out the activities below to learn more:

Overview of the week’s events:

Monday, May 2DC Small Biz Resource Mini-Clinic Pop-Ups. Stop by and receive free technical assistance and other resources for your small business. Free giveaways, music, and fun while supplies last! Three locations:

Destination Congress Heights Ribbon-cutting for their new Main Streets program
9:30 am – 10:30 am at 3110 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. with Mayor Bowser, Councilmember May and the Office of Planning.

Tuesday, May 3

POWER UP DC Forum. Join us, DC Health Link & other partners at our FREE small business forum: POWER UP DC 2016 for a range of business-focused workshops; get new information about small business marketplace provisions of the Affordable Care Act; come network, build business relationships and more.

Wednesday, May 4

CNHED’s Happy Hour. Come out to CNHED’s happy hour for great company and brews and bites half off from 5:00 – 7:00 pm.

Thursday, May 5

DCRA Business Matchmaking Event. Get one-on-one business matchmaking assistance from representatives of the from 4 pm – 7pm

We’re expecting some major media attention this week, so be sure to send us information about your events – we want to highlight your work! You will soon receive a communications packet that includes sample tweets, Facebook posts, and more to help you spread the word.

Promote our organizations’ events

Planning a grand opening or customer appreciation day? Hosting a special training or other event? Throughout the week, we’ll be promoting your events, so whatever it is, send us the details and we’ll include it in our overall marketing. Here are a few events we know about:

We’re expecting some major media attention this week, so be sure to send us information about your events – we want to highlight your work! You will soon receive a communications packet that includes sample tweets, Facebook posts, and more to help you spread the word.

Volunteer at one of the Mini-Clinics

Give your organization exposure and reach more clients at one of the DC Small Biz Resource Mini-Clinic Pop-Ups!

Promote our organizations’ events

Planning a grand opening or customer appreciation day? Hosting a special training or other event? Throughout the week, we’ll be promoting your events, so whatever it is, send us the details and we’ll include it in our overall marketing. Here are a few events we know about:

Everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home and no one should be homeless for years. Fortunately, the Mayor and DC Council have made a promise to ensure affordable housing, end chronic homelessness, and build a DC where all residents thrive. To fulfill these promises, several key investments are needed in the FY 17 budget. Join us at the Fulfill the Promise rally!

Commit at least $100 million a year to the Housing Production Trust Fund.

The Housing Production Trust Fund is crucial to creating and preserving affordable housing for District residents. The Trust Fund plays a key role in the preservation of existing affordable housing by enabling tenants to purchase their buildings and preserve them as affordable. It also helps to build new affordable housing for rent or purchase and creates new permanent supportive housing units to end chronic homelessness.

End chronic homelessness by 2017 and ensure more housing options for families.

We support Homeward DC, the District’s plan to end all homelessness, including the goal to end chronic homelessness by 2017. Approximately 2,000 new units of housing are needed to end chronic homelessness for individuals. We urge elected officials to meet at least half of the need in FY 17, and the remainder in FY 18. In particular we recommend:

Investing $8.6 million in Permanent SupportiveHousing and $6.8 million in Targeted Affordable Housing for individuals in FY17.

Investing $6.2 million in Permanent Supportive Housing and $4 million in Targeted Affordable Housing for families in FY17.

Continuing the production of Permanent Supportive Housing and Targeted Affordable Housing for individuals and families through the Consolidated Request for Proposals to ensure a long-term stock of housing that meets the needs of DC’s homeless population.

Fund the Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP) at a level of $13.2 million for a robust first-time homeownership program.

Downpayment assistance is a critical tool to help first-time buyers purchase homes in the District. This increase of approximately $4 million would allow DHCD to fund 240 loans, the agency’s goal for FY16, with an increased award amount.

Commit an additional $5 million to the Tenant-Based Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP) to serve new families on the waiting list for affordable housing.

Tens of thousands of families are waiting for an affordable housing voucher allowing them to have housing security and relieve their high housing cost burden. Continued investments in the tenant-based LRSP are critical to provide these families with affordable housing options.

Commit an additional $3.6 million to the Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP) to increase the production of housing for residents and serve 300 extremely low-income households.

LRSP is crucial to the production of rental housing for extremely low income families and individuals in the District. This funding is needed to meet the goals of the Homeward DC plan by supporting the production of Permanent Supportive Housing in new developments, including the 5% required in all DHCD-funded projects. It is also needed to ensure the Housing Production Trust Fund meets its statutory requirements to use 40% of the Trust Fund at 0-30% AMI to serve individuals and families with extremely low incomes.

The District boasts the nation’s strongest rent stabilization laws, but significant loopholes are undermining the laws’ goals of preserving affordable housing and protecting vulnerable tenants. Reforms to the rent control law must:

Protect seniors and people with disabilities from extreme rent increases

Home Sweet Home

At CNHED’s Housing For All Campaign, we know how sweet a home can be. A home is a special place. It may hold sweet memories or be a place that gives you sweet dreams.

Submit your essay, poem, or story that tells us what makes a home so sweet, and you could be a winner! Submissions are due Friday, January 8. We encourage everyone young and old to share their stories as we work to win Housing For All in DC. See Contest Guidelines below.

Prompt: Tell us what makes a home “Home Sweet Home.” It could be where you live now, where you once lived, or where you hope to live.

Submissions should be no more than 500 words- essay, story or poetry accepted.

Submissions are due January 8, 2016.

Submissions and questions should be directed to Elizabeth Falcon: housingforall@cnhed.org

Authors should state if they are applying in the adult or youth category. (Authors over 18 should submit in the “adult” category).

Authors who have won in previous years are not eligible to win again.

Winners will be informed by January 15, 2016.

Winners will be recognized at the Housing For All Rally in February – details will be announced to all participants. All are welcome to attend. The first place winner in each category will be asked to read their winning submission.

Any submissions become the property of CNHED. Winning entries will be published on our blog www.cnhed.org/housing-for-all-campaign/blog. All publications will credit the author.

In the budget released at 5:30 pm last night, Chairman Mendelson proposed moving $9 million that should go to the Housing Production Trust Fund in FY15 to be moved to FY16, then using $9 million from FY16’s funding to pay for other programs. This last minute change is a loss of $9 million that would have been used to purchase, renovate, preserve or build affordable housing this year. The budget as written still reflects $100M in FY16, but also loses $9 million this year. We shouldn’t lose Trust Fund money this year in order to have it next year.

I am calling to express my disappointment that Chairman Mendelson’s proposed budget reflects a $9 million loss to Housing Production Trust Fund compared to the budget proposed by the Mayor and the Housing Committee.

This last minute change would cost the District over 100 affordable housing units. I support $100 million in the Trust Fund next year, and full funding from dedicated sources this year.

The Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development and its Housing For All Campaign:

Support the use of dedicated funding from the Deed Recordation and Transfer Tax automatically being directed to HPTF. Dedicated funding for HPTF is what turned the program from an idea into a real mechanism to invest in our communities for over 12 years. Unfortunately, redirecting funds already dedicated to the Trust Fund has plagued the program as elected leaders have turned to HPTF to fund other programs. This costs the District through the affordable homes lost and opportunities to build new homes missed.

Challenge the notion that housing programs should be pitted against each other in the local budget. Even this year where affordable housing programs have seen meaningful increases, the proportion of the DC budget that is directed to affordable housing is a tiny sliver of our local investments. We should not be asked to choose between building affordable housing this year or next year AND we should not be asked to choose between the production of affordable housing and leasing or homelessness-ending tools.

Support the Local Rent Supplement Program, Permanent Supportive Housing and Targeted Affordable Housing. CNHED and the Housing For All Campaign have advocated for years to invest in a Continuum of Housing to address the diverse housing needs in our community. Each tool is critical to meeting long and short term housing demands in our rapidly increasing housing market.

Thanks to the over 100 organizations and hundreds of individuals who signed on to support the Housing Production Trust Fund! We have shared the letter and your names with the DC Council and will continue to encourage them to invest in the Trust Fund and other affordable housing programs at our Advocacy Day and on the budget vote day May 27. Download the full letter with organizations and individual signatures here.

Dear Members of the Council of the District of Columbia,

Fund $100 million in the Housing Production Trust Fund this year.

The DC Council should continue to lead the District to invest in affordable homes in our communities. As you make final decisions on the District’s budget, we urge the Council to affirm the commitment made in the Housing Production Trust Fund Baseline Funding Amendment Act of 2014 and ensure $100 million remains in the Housing Production Trust Fund in the Fiscal Year 2016 Budget.

Since 2002, the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) has been providing affordable homes to thousands of District residents. Unfortunately, it has not had consistent funding during that time, and the ability of the Housing Production Trust Fund to keep affordable homes in our communities and build new ones has waxed and waned. With housing costs rising and District residents forced to leave, pay more than half their income in rent, or seek services from our homeless shelter system, we urge the Council to ensure that the District invests in developing and preserving affordable homes.

The Housing Production Trust Fund is key to the preservation and development of homes District residents can afford.

It has produced and preserved over 8,500 affordable homes across every ward in the District. There are over 3,400 more affordable homes in the pipeline with Trust Fund commitments.

HPTF funds the creation and preservation of a Continuum of Housing including affordable rental, homeownership, cooperatives, and supportive housing in all eight wards.

All funds directed to HPTF in previous budgets have already been committed to affordable homes in projects that have been assessed by DHCD.

HPTF is crucial to meet the District’s long-term goals of addressing homelessness through permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless and providing affordable units for homeless individuals and families.

Funding from HPTF is used to purchase and rehab deeply affordable and federally subsided buildings.

A successful preservation strategy relies on HPTF to keep District residents in their homes and keep costs low in the long term.

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, call on the Council to invest $100 million in the Housing Production Trust Fund in the Fiscal Year 2016 budget.

Yesterday, Mayor Bowser presented her budget to the DC Council in a hearing where she and the Councilmembers were able to highlight achievements and raise concerns. CNHED was there to support investments made in affordable housing and to address homelessness in the District. In opening statements, nearly all members of the DC Council applauded the $100 million investment in the Housing Production Trust Fund by name. Many also shared appreciation that Mayor Bowser increased investments to improve services to DC’s homeless families and individuals.

Housing and Community Development Committee Chair Anita Bonds expressed her appreciation to the Mayor starting off “specifically thanking you for commitment that Housing Production Trust Fund is fully funded at $100 million.” Committee member Silverman added, “I was happy to see in the budget a fully-funded Housing Production Trust Fund. We’ve lost more than 20,000 affordable housing units in the past decade, which is astounding. We’re doing a good job of attracting new residents and creating jobs, but it’s difficult for our workers to afford to live here.”

Mayor Bowser reiterated her commitments to addressing DC’s housing and homelessness issues. Many investments in this year’s budget are towards the Interagency Council on Homelessness’ goals of making homelessness rare, brief, and non-reoccurring. She specifically talked about the $100 million for the Housing Production Trust Fund saying that it is more than a tag-line, rather it is “a promise to do everything we can to preserve and create affordable housing.”

Mayor Bowser also previewed that she will be announcing the creation of a preservation strike force to help ensure that DC does not lose some of the most affordable homes we already have.

Mayor Bowser met with CNHED before finishing her budget

Some questions arose about the use of the Housing Production Trust Fund. CNHED will continue to work with the DC Council to build their appreciation of the good work the Housing Production Trust Fund does – including the 2,300 homes that are currently in the process of being built or renovated thanks to the Trust Fund. All of the Housing Production Trust Fund investments made in the last two years have gone into those projects, so the $100 million announced this year will be used to create new housing opportunities.

“We encourage the Council to stand with the Mayor and the Council’s unanimous legislation and ensure $100 million remains in the Housing Production Trust Fund and to make investments across the Continuum of Housing in this year’s budget,” said CNHED Executive Director Steve Glaude.

Congratulations to our first place adult winner, Dynise Coogler! Ms. Coogler gives an account of her battle with homelessness with the burden of mental illness. She also expresses the importance of having a helping heart in the homeless community. Congrats again Dynise Coogler on being this year’s first place winner!A House Is Where the Heart Is

The shadows of the house were awash with the eerie glow of the street lights as they filtered through the window. There was no cacophony of street sounds. No metro bus rumbling through the streets, no trucks, no plethora of cars riding past the house. All was dead quiet. And all of it reminded me that I was to be here only a short time. My next move was to be Jordan House; a crisis facility. I was a homeless mental health patient signed onto a crisis facility. A two-fold purpose; get back my mental health and also provide proper housing. Proper housing for the homeless. Homeless…a word that has many meanings. Without a home of your own is what the majority think of when thinking of the word homeless. But to think of the homeless is to think of the corporate body of people walking the streets without a place to go. I was fortunate to have Jordan House. But what of the person asking for spare change. Spare change can help you purchase a single cup of coffee, a hot sandwich or a bus ride to a shelter. A shelter can be a God-sent thing …a place to stay.
In Washington, DC we could use more gifts like a place to stay. It is traditionally called “affordable housing”. This housing is a gift private foundations, corporations, private citizens try to spearhead the move to procure for the homeless. These myriad people work tirelessly to find housing for the homeless. They wrap their collective arms around the homeless and try to help.
The look of quiet desperation is evident on the faces of the homeless, but people can help them to be brave. I used to be homeless. People helped me to develop courage by prayer and just trying to get proper housing. I now stay at Hyacinth’s Place: a place of help and healing that provides for low-income women that are trying to better develop themselves and ready themselves for the future. I made it. Let’s hope that all the homeless of Washington, DC make it. Let’s hope that all are treated with the love and compassion that fosters the belief that home is where your heart is. Let our hearts be with the homeless.

Our second place winner, Swan Gray, magnifies the essence of home and hearth. In this thought provoking account, she writes about the feelings that she had in each house she’s ever lived in- stressing the all time idiom “A house does not make a home, people do.”

Home is not a structure made out of bricks and wood or stone or stucco.
It isn’t made up of plaster walls with posters and paintings, or with carpeted rooms and marble counter tops. It doesn’t have an address or an area code.

To a nomad home is an adjective,
a word that describes a feeling or state of being.

I moved a lot as a child, a different house, with a different room and nothing was normal, nothing was ever just mine.

These houses are faded in my memory now,
like well-worn jeans and only glimpses remain.

A darkened attic with slanted walls and where the heat never visited.
A room where the rising sun, streaming through bay windows would wake me and tempted peeping toms.

A studio with a mermaid bathtub and a view of a garden
where my cat chased raccoons away.

A simple wooden shack with holes for windows,
laid where the jungle meets the sea.

These glimpses fill my heart with nostalgia because it reminds me of the words of wisdom my father gave me, or the time I held my sisters little baby body, or the pillow I cried into when I realized that my mother wouldn’t be there to guide me into womanhood.

These glimpses carry with them the moments I discovered my talents, or when I dreamt, both waking and sleeping, and devised plans
for the life I hoped to have.

Home is the hearts of people that you love and that love you, it is the arms of your grandmother, the laughter of your siblings,
the adventures with your friends.

It’s in those moments love creates, when you can just free to be who you are and celebrated. I take home with me wherever I go.

Our third place winner, Valerie Person, gives a detailed and emotional account of her dynamic definition of home. As a daughter, mother, and grandmother she has experienced different experiencse in her life that have shaped her descriptive meaning of what home is to her.

Valerie Person (left) seen accepting her 3rd place award with fellow essay finalists.

Home is Where the Heart Is
A home is a special place to have, because there is love. I feel so peaceful and loved just to sit in my home and read a book, watch TV, and sit at my computer enjoying the quietness…. My life has not been all that good. I lost my way, my children, grandchildren, family and my home. I was addicted to drugs for years and had nowhere to live. I thank God for delivering me.

While living with my sons we had good times when I was not doing drugs. They did not have everything they wanted, but they did not go without on the holidays either. I still cooked during those times and the love was still there, but in their eyes and heart, they were hurting. Sometimes I did not know how to feel. I knew that we love each other, but to them I had a different way of showing mine. Today I know that there is nothing like having family. Now I have a roof over my head, a warm bed and my family support. I feel safe and comfortable, protected, peaceful and loved. I do not have to worry about where I would sleep anymore. My family comes and celebrates my birthdays and Thanksgiving with me. I feel the love and peace in my heart knowing that I have a second chance to be with them. God’s presence flows through my home. It is a blessing knowing that he will never leave me.

I love when my grandchildren come over on weekends. We pray, sing, read our bibles and let God’s presence come down. We are always doing something together. I just love the smiles on their faces when they walk in and just light up the house. They are as happy to be with me as I am with them. We are always glorifying God. My youngest granddaughter she gets on her knees every time she hears the song “Pray”. In church that is the song that we sing, during prayer time. They love going to church with me. They sing and they love playing the games on TV. The aroma of the food I cook is a wonderful smell in the air all over the house. I teach them how to bake cakes, doughnuts and cupcakes. We have a ball. Sometimes I cannot wait for them to go sleep. They can be a handful but I love them all.

The joy that I have in my home is a glorious feeling. I thank God for all he is doing in my life. My home is where the heart is. It is the love we all share when we come together under one roof. Our love is from the heart and it is unconditional. We have our difficulties, but we still love each other. Having a home is a blessing.

Our first place youth winner, Aniya Ward, gives a symbolic definition of what home means to her. She is well aware of the disadvantages of those without homes to call their own, but explains the importance of happiness in everything that she does. Congrats on being this year’s first place winner!

1st Place | Youth Category
“Home”, home is a place where I feel free. Home, home is the place where I can be anyone I want to be. My home to me is music. When I sing I feel peace, I feel calm, and I feel that absolutely nobody can get to me. They say home is where you live, but I think otherwise. To me, home can be anywhere, as long as you feel like you can be yourself. Where I was raised, I was taught to respect others, and to treat other people how I wanted to be treated. I take everything that I have ever learned, and I use it towards music. Every note I hit when I sing is magic. Even if I mess up I know that it’s ok. Usually, when I mess up anything at school, I put a lot of pressure on myself because I want everything that I do, to be done perfectly. But at home I feel serenity. As a youth, I’m grateful to even have a place to call home. I’m grateful to have a place to rest my head, and dance all day until my feet hurt because not everyone has that. Where I live is a place where I can learn from my mistakes, perfect my crafts, and strive to be the best. Unfortunately people don’t have the open doors to work on their life goals no matter how talented they are. To the people who are associated with the homeless environment, I truly believe that they deserve to have a place to call home. They deserve to know that they deserve the best, and they deserve to have a chance to succeed and be the best. My home is my open door to success, but most importantly “Home Is Where the Heart Is”.

Housing for All Blog is a project of the Housing For All Campaign. We believe all District residents deserve decent, quality housing at a price they can afford, and call on District officials to create a full Continuum of Housing that will meet that need.